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Heaven: Ch 5

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Chapter 5



"I found them. The Beasts of Konoha are alive and well!"

Kiba's exuberant voice – for all that he was trying to suppress his excitement – was joined by Akamaru's joyful bark and Neji glared at the pair of them until they subsided into shamefaced silence.

"That's good news, Inuzuka. Next time, try not to alert the entire village of our plans," Neji spoke quietly, glancing around to make sure no one was near.

The Inuzuka grimaced at him but continued in a quieter tone of voice, "They are on the edge of the Suna border – I guess the Kazekage's turning a blind-eye towards their presence."

Neji resisted the urge to laugh in sheer relief – the feelings bubbling up inside him almost uncontainably. Here was finally some proof that Gai-sensei and Lee, at least, were all right and thriving. Having been forbidden to leave the village himself he had to rely on the Inuzuka's nose and the circuitous routes they devised for searching whenever the Inuzuka was sent out to scout. But this, the first good news in the month since Hiashi had denied his request to search for his teammates, meant that he could finally begin to do something. He pulled the pre-prepared scroll from folds of his clan robes and handed it to Kiba. He may not be able to search for Tenten but Lee and Gai were free to search however long it took. As soon as he had confirmation that Tenten was in trouble, there was no way the Hokage or his uncle could stop him from trying to rescue one of their own.

"No one saw you return?"

A shake of the wild, dark mane confirmed Neji's faith in the younger man and he exhaled quietly.

"Good. Then deliver this as fast as you are able. I'll cover for you with the Hokage but as long as no one knows you returned you shouldn't be missed until you get back. But be careful," he reminded the grinning Kiba who nodded once to show he understood.

"Come, Akamaru!"

With a muted bark, the Inuzuka and his nin-hound slipped away into the semi-darkness that still surrounded the Hokage tower though dawn was beginning to lighten the sky, and Neji allowed himself to relax once he saw their chakra signatures pass through the gates without having been stopped.

If this plan worked, he would owe Kiba more than he could ever repay.



The walls were slowly closing in on him. Day by day, hour by hour, they seemed to be moving closer in slow increments until Sasuke felt like he was suffocating. The initial focus on Tenten was slowly waning, as she grew more proficient at fighting him, and with the loss of something to consume his thoughts came the memories.

Trapped.

It didn't help that he was in a trap of his own making; somehow that seemed to make it worse.

Kusanagi flashed, silver streaks cutting through the air, but Tenten whirled, determination drawing her mouth into a thin line as she evaded the thrust and parried with her wooden practice sword. Sasuke lessened the pressure of his blade on hers the moment they connected, to keep from cutting right through the wood. Tenten withdrew and he allowed himself a slight smirk as he whirled in a tight circle, disappearing from her line of sight. She was beginning to accept the situation – he could feel it. After the incident with her ribs, she was less volatile, less filled with resentment and anger. Or maybe she had just learned to keep those feelings to herself. Either way, he was grateful. He had no desire to talk to her, no desire to be constantly defending himself. He had a job to do, and she was going to help him do it. The sooner she accepted that the better for both of them. He tried to draw a deep breath, ignoring the way even his loose clothing – a white sleeveless shirt and black pants – felt like they were choking him.

Focus. Control. Think of the plan.

But even as a part of his mind focused on the way he intended to use Tenten; on how she was going to buy his passage straight to Naruto – another part of him couldn't focus on anything but the increasingly urgent need to get the hell away from this place. He was so goddamn tired; every fibre of his being urged him to simply forge ahead with the plan, to get to Naruto so it could all be over … but Sasuke knew that such a hasty course of action would only result in failure.

The burn of the flat of a wooden blade connecting with his midriff yanked him out of his thoughts. The Sharingan spun to life as he glared at the kunoichi in front of him. She met his gaze, challenge shining clearly in her hazel eyes.

"Don't think you can disregard me, Uchiha," she hissed even as she moved to withdraw to a safe distance, carefully gauging his reaction.

Sasuke nearly sighed; that was the problem with subordinates – some of them would forever challenge their master, refusing to accept their status as a weapon that existed to do that master's bidding. His free hand shot out, blindingly fast, as his sword arm raised, and before Tenten had taken two steps away from him he'd caught her katana in a tight grip; Kusanagi raised and pressed against her throat.

"You pose no threat to me, kunoichi," he stated, calmly. "But I'm losing patience with your attitude."

She glared at him and let go of the katana, raising her chin slightly so Kusanagi pressed deeper into her pale skin. A thin line of blood appeared under the razor sharp blade but she ignored it as she spoke deliberately, so he could have no doubt of the fact that she was deadly serious.

"Do us both a favor then and just kill me."

"What would be the point of discarding a weapon before you know how sharp it may be?" he asked as he lowered Kusanagi and retreated into the shadows.

She thought he was gone; he was carefully suppressing his chakra again, and he could see the way she exhaled in relief the moment his presence disappeared. Tenten winced as she carefully touched her stomach and Sasuke smirked without mirth – if the bruise that was forming on his abdominal muscles hurt her anything as much as it hurt him she would think twice about inflicting harm to prove a point in the future.

It was progressing well.

If only he could shake the feeling of oppression, Sasuke felt sure he might be more hopeful of his plans proceeding than he had been since the fateful fight with his brother so long ago.



Sasuke slowly opened his eyes; obsidian gaze darting around at his surroundings: blood-red sky over a scorched wasteland and the screaming caw of carrion-eaters wheeling high above his head while their feathers fluttered to the ground around him in a rain of shadows. He shuddered as a feather brushed against his cheek before continuing its slow spiral to the dusty earth. The ground trembled and then shook; cracks deep as the abyssal trenches of the ocean breaking open before him…

They rose from the depths, still wreathed in shadow. Some little more than skeletons, flesh barely clinging to their bones, others barely touched by the grave save for pale skin and gaping wounds; some old, some young – male, female …

Uchiha all.

The weight of their accusing stares brought him to his knees; a supplicant begging for forgiveness; still they marched relentlessly towards him, though the distance between the kneeling Sasuke and his dead clan never grew smaller.

… Why you, little Sasuke? What makes you so special that you deserved to live?

Their voices rose in a deafening crescendo of thunder crashing through his skull …

Pain surged; a thousand needles piercing into his skin, a hundred stabs straight through the heart, but he couldn't regret it … instead Sasuke revelled in it …

He had learned the hard way, after all … feeling pain was far better than feeling nothing at all.

So he knelt before the ever-advancing tide of vengeful Uchiha, almost hoping that the next swell would bring them close enough to tear him limb from limb.

His head bowed, dark hair swinging forward to hide the tears that streaked relentlessly – silently - down his cheeks and trembling hands lifted slowly to his chest, tracing over the raised edges of fresh wounds … slightly stained fingertips touched his lips, as the cough wracked painfully through his frame … the welling blood from inside him spilled over to drip through the spaces between his fingers to the ground below … Ice lanced through him, from the crown of his head to his toes, and he slowly raised his eyes …

It was always her.

Never the others … and he could never decide if it was a fact he relished or loathed.

The coldness came from the touch of her hand to the top of his head. Pale, slender fingers rested against the dark strands of his hair, caressing softly, as Mikoto stared down at her youngest son; still beautiful despite the pallor of death and the stab-wounds …

"You will fail, Sasuke," she whispered, "You must be stronger than this."


With a hoarse cry, Sasuke woke.

The sheets tangled around him, trapping him, his heart beating too fast; a staccato rhythm of fear and revulsion against the cage of his ribs. He panted for breath; throat raw and dry as if he'd been shouting in his sleep. It wouldn't be the first time he'd screamed himself awake from a nightmare that felt all too real. Even after waking, it took days to recede, sometimes. As if the clan was still advancing upon him, still demanding their due; their blood-price…

"What more can I give you?"

He was out of the bed, the stone cold and uncaring beneath his bare feet, sweat sheening his skin despite the frigidity of the winter air; his words – half-shouted in anger – reverberating back to him from the walls.

For a moment he stood, panting; Sharingan wheeling frantically as he sought an outlet for the explosion building within him. It wasn't quite feeling … part-frustration, part-anger, part-hate … but it was all he had and Sasuke closed his eyes, savage pleasure ripping through him as the floodgates opened and the twittering of a thousand birds, encased in blue-white lightning, joined the sound of stone groaning and crumbling. He channelled the lightning through his body with all the violent force the element demanded; ignoring the voice in his head telling him to stop, even as he heeded its call.

I'm stronger than you think, Mother.



Tenten woke with a cry on her lips. Pain crashed in relentless waves over her body; fire seemed to be burning her from the inside out. Fear and horror, anger and longing, tangled inside her in a chaotic mess of feeling, that somehow didn't seem to belong to her, but the searing burn all along her nerve-endings drowned out the emotions. Instinctively seeking to extinguish the source of her sudden agony she pulled the sheets away, hands unerringly going to her hip. She was barely aware of the cloth shredding beneath frantic fingers as she struggled to uncover her skin.

The curse seal glowed, like coals in a brazier, shadow-red in the darkness of her cell.

Before she had a chance to assimilate the fact, another wave of pure torture lanced through her; white-hot, it burned through her body, heating her blood and searing her veins…

She fell back onto the bed, sobbing, aware of nothing now except the torment raging inside her. Her back arched; lightning danced across her skin and, from somewhere above her thrashing form, Tenten watched with detachment, ignoring the understanding of what was happening even as it formed.

Sasuke. Stop.

As suddenly as the attack had started, it ceased, and Tenten fell bonelessly back onto the sheets; coughing weakly against the blood that filled her throat from her badly-bitten tongue and lips.



As had become his habit, while autumn melted seamlessly into winter, Sasuke went to fetch Tenten at dawn. In the weeks they'd been together he knew to expect her awake and alert; sometimes injured, sometimes not, but after the incident a few weeks ago when he'd been forced to bind her ribs she'd been more careful. A fact that pleased him. She fought with more cunning now; more skill, more strength, certainly … but the fact that she was learning to evade his attacks – no matter that he wasn't ever aiming to kill; there was no way she could avoid that – meant that she was learning. It was progress he hadn't hoped for so soon.

Their training sessions had even meant that he was so tired by the time he finally found his bed at night that the dreams hadn't occurred as frequently. The previous night had been the first time in all the weeks with Tenten that he'd had one. He refused to acknowledge that there might be some significance in that but couldn't quite ignore the way the seal acted. Sometimes, he could almost feel her … a slight brush – a tingle – of a consciousness not his own. He ignored it but it was useful. It meant that he could accurately gauge when she was at the end of her strength as they sparred; because the proud kunoichi would never yield, that much he had learned early on.

The locked clicked, loudly in the stillness of a new morning, his breath fogging white condensation into the air in front of him as he waited. Usually, the moment the lock clicked Tenten pulled the door open but this morning there was only silence. Sasuke frowned in irritation; what was the silly girl up to now? He pushed at the door, with more violence than he'd really intended and it flew inward, crashing against the wall so hard that splinters of wood flew into the air.

She lay, unconscious on her bed, a trickled of dried blood staining her chin. Her skin was raw, red and blistered, and Sasuke froze in the doorway at the sight.

How had this happened? Why had he not felt it?

It was like trying to remember a dream within a dream … but he instinctively knew his suspicions were right. The voice telling him to stop as he'd laid waste to his chamber with Chidori the night before hadn't been his imagination… Sasuke sighed as he stepped closer to the bed and bent to lift the girl.

Clearly, she wasn't a Lightning type. And more importantly, it was increasingly becoming clearer that he had to find a way to block the seal from reacting so violently. She was still alive this time, though barely, but how much longer would she have lived if he had been facing a true enemy and needed more than one Chidori?

He carried her to the remains of Kabuto's lab; mouth set in an uncompromising line as he held her firmly despite her unconscious moaning at the contact of her raw skin with his clothes. He was unskilled in healing; though his chakra control had improved as he grew older Sasuke knew that he would never have the skill to channel it into healing. Even if he had, his chakra seemed to rebel at the very idea; roiling inside him with unease. No, even if had been able to heal he wouldn't have attempted it on Tenten … his chakra was meant for destruction, nothing more.

But Kabuto had left enough of his vials and potions and scrolls that there had to be something useful in the room and Sasuke's Sharingan was already sweeping over the shelves as he laid Tenten down on the dusty examining table in the middle of the room. Having lived the life of a nuke-nin, he knew enough to realize that he had to soothe and prevent infection, had to treat the shock …

For a long moment he stood staring at Tenten, lying still on the table, before he whirled in a tight circle and exited the room, trying to remember the location of the nearest bathroom in this part of the complex. If memory served, it contained only a shower but that would be good enough to ease the worst of the stinging, as long as he didn't turn the water on to full blast.

Hours later, Sasuke was exhausted but Tenten had been soaked in cold water to ease the pain of the burns. He'd found some sort of salve in Kabuto's things that had been labelled 'Healing Unguent' and he'd carefully applied some of it to a small spot on her ankle. After a few minutes the blister had started to shrink somewhat – the angry red color receding - so he'd proceeded to apply it to the rest of her body. Throughout the ministrations he could feel the frustration gathering inside him but the one thing his years in existence had taught him was that when something was his mess, he was expected to right it. So he'd crushed a couple of painkillers and mixed them with water before forcing it down Tenten's throat.

Finally, there was nothing further he could do so he'd covered her in a light blanket and pushed a pillow under her head.

There were no nightmares that night.



Tenten woke slowly; swimming her way to consciousness through dark and swirling waters that continually threatened to drag her back down. When her eyes finally fluttered open, it took a moment for the room to come into focus: the shelves filled with strange bottles, floating specimens and pieces of bone.

Gradually she became aware of the cold slab of metal she was lying on, though a light blanket covered her, and the sting of burns that covered her body. She carefully turned her head, trying not to move too much though the movement still brought tears smarting to her eyes. A few rapid blinks cleared her vision somewhat and she finally registered Sasuke's almost preternaturally still form leaning against the wall across from her. She swallowed the dryness in her throat, licked her lips and he seemed to realize she wanted water because despite the grimace that graced his features he quickly brought a glass and tilted it against her lips. The coolness trickling down her throat felt like a balm as it travelled through her body. He allowed her only a few sips before he took the glass away but Tenten knew that too much too soon could be harmful so she stayed silent though her body screamed for more of the life-giving liquid.

"You did this," she finally managed to croak weakly, still staring unwaveringly at the Uchiha who had retreated to his spot by the wall again.

Sasuke inclined his head in agreement, not speaking for a long moment, though obsidian eyes were carefully raking over her.

"I did not intend to," he finally allowed.

Tenten figured it was as close to an apology as she was ever likely to get so she closed her eyes, trying to fight against the scream of aching muscles and seared flesh.

"A weapon weakened as you are is of no use to me."

She opened her eyes again but Sasuke ignored her look of accusation and outrage as he directed his gaze somewhere over her head and continued.

"I've been thinking and I may have found a way to decrease the most debilitating effects of the seal. A wall of chakra, encasing the link, cutting it off from us until it's needed."

Hope rose, no matter that she knew it was foolish; that there was no way he would have gone to all the trouble to hone her, heal her, only to let her go, and Tenten tried to force the burgeoning bubble inside her to deflate.

"I will still control the link, of course," his deep voice was utterly without inflection but somehow the minute tightening around his mouth indicated that he was well aware of what she'd been thinking.

"But if my chakra pushes the link out from my side, and yours from you, then we should be able to keep it in a sort of stasis between us. It is just a theory and the choice is yours as to whether the risk is worth it."

Tenten wanted to laugh but the pain prevented it. Did he honestly think an unknown, made-up-on-the-spur-of-the-moment, jutsu was more risky than every moment she spent linked to his violent mood-swings? She opened her mouth to agree – anything was better than the pain she'd already suffered because of him - but Sasuke's quick glare indicated that he wasn't done talking.

"It will require … a certain level of trust, from your side," he said slowly, "You will have to allow me to shape your chakra around the link which means that you will have to believe, at the very least, that I mean you no physical harm."

"Think about it."

He was gone before she had a chance to reply and Tenten finally allowed the tears of pure helpless hopelessness to fall. How could he ever expect her to believe that he meant her no physical harm when she was currently unable to move for the pain he'd inflicted?
Heaven: Ch 5

Unholy alliances led Sasuke down the path of destruction but he'd always known one day he would have to pay his dues. Through a twist of fate Tenten becomes his ticket out of a hatred ravaged existence as she struggles to make her way home. Ninja-verse AU.

Couples: SasuTen & some NejiTen.

A/N: Thank you for all the lovely reviews! I promise I'll still get around to individual replies but I thought I'd get the next chapter out first ^^ I'm so glad to hear that you're finding the story interesting. On another note … I just want to reiterate that this is a SasuTen fic; no NejiTen ending – sorry to those of you hoping for such a resolution. But I hope that you'll still find the story interesting and that you'll continue to read it!
What do you think of Sasuke's plans (what is known of it) and Neji's for that matter? What will Tenten do with the new choice laid in front of her? Let me know!

If you like my work, please add to your :+fav:s! To be updated on the new chapters, please add me to your :+devwatch:.

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~Nokito-chan :star:
© 2012 - 2024 Nokito-chan
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cas42's avatar
Zowie... Where to begin?

Sasuke's nightmare was exquisite. A perfect ten.

The way I'm reading Sasuke's big plan; it could be 1) some sort of redemption thing, 2) Some sort of Frank Miller-esque "This would be a good death" thing, or 3) starting his own village with all the outcast shinobi.

Given the general tone of the story... I'm betting on option 2 (but, I'm secretly hoping the ending will resolve itself in #3)

I like how you have glimmers of Sasuke being a sympathetic character, He's going to need more empathy for the SasuTen relationship to be believable.

Lovely story.

-Cas